Scientific Evidence and the Watts Riots
William J. Curran · New England Journal of Medicine · 1969
THE Court of Appeal in California has recently decided a very important case involving the acceptability in court of a new scientific test known as a "voiceprint." The technic consists of a spectrographic, stylus-traced recording of the voice of a person developed from a sound recording on tape. In The People v. King,1 the Court refused to allow a criminal conviction to stand based on personal identification as a result of a voiceprint. The Court held that the technic had not reached a sufficient level of scientific acceptability, particularly since it was still basically the theory and practice of . . .